Red Dress
by lead me to salvation
Summary: "Can we just pretend for one more moment that everything's normal, that I'm a man who's just been to a concert with a beautiful woman in a red dress?" Me Before You/TSOM mashup. Proboards May 2016 prompt.


_This will probably end up as a series of oneshots based on the same premise - this is for the May 2016 Proboards Writing Prompt which was TSOM/another movie mashup. The other movie here is Me Before You, which I saw recently and completely fell in love with - for those of you who don't know, it's about a man who has a road accident and becomes quadriplegic and the aimless young woman who ends up as his carer. Enjoy! (also sorry for the long wait!) Sorcha xxxx_

* * *

It's quite by chance that she finds the advert for the concert – she was sitting with him in the garden watching the blue of the sky soar and swoop between the scudding white clouds, talking over the crossword in that week's Telegraph when she turns the page and there it is. She sits, silent for a second, her finger tracing over the words, remembering how it felt to sing Mozart in the chapel of the Abbey, to feel the music pouring from her lungs like a waterfall of honey and sunlight, golden notes splashing onto the flagstoned floors of the choir stalls.

"San Francisco?" Georg says from his wheelchair. "No, that doesn't have eight letters. This is ridiculous, I've been around California more times than I can count…Maria, are you okay?"

"How would you feel…?" Maria starts, folding over the paper.

"Should I be worried?" he interrupts with _that_ half smile that always sends Amazonian swallowtails somersaulting around her ribcage.

"Yes, as you seem to be allergic to classical music," she jokes. "I just saw an advert for a concert, a Mozart one, and I haven't ever heard Mozart played by anything but an organ and I was wondering…"

"If we should go together?" His eyes are drowning-deep. His smile evens itself out.

"Yes, but don't worry…"

"We'll go. As long as you promise there won't be any more run-ins like at the races."

"I'll try to keep my temper in check," Maria laughs, reaching over to smooth the collar of his shirt. He smiles again, and she wishes she could freeze the moment and live in it forever.

* * *

She waits outside the door to the manor for Georg's assistant to wheel him into the car, smoothing down the red satin of her dress and trying to erase Mother Superior's words from the lining of her skull where they've stuck themselves. She can almost hear the pitying, warning voice reverberating in her neurones, spinning round and round and round in a merry-go-round of all the things she doesn't want to think about, not tonight. Well, not ever, actually.

 _Maria, child, you can't force someone to live when they've made up their mind to die._

She can. She's going to. She _has_ to.

 _But Mother, haven't you always said that suicide is a mortal sin?_

She can't let that happen. It's for his immortal soul, she thinks, clutching her hands together and tipping her head back to feel the billion-year-old starlight on her face.

 _Yes, my child. But sometimes you just have to let what happens happen. He has his reasons. And better that than how his daughter found him before._

Surely a man who wants to die, a man who's ready to die, wouldn't look at her like she's the only thing saving him from drowning? Surely he wouldn't stare at the way she looks in this old red dress that Sister Berthe found for her like she's every single molecule of oxygen in the world rolled into one if he was ready to take those pills and end his life?

Franz reappears and hands her the car-keys, forcing her out of her thoughts. "Have fun," he says with a smile. "I'm on my mobile if you need me."

* * *

"I think we've found the cure to my allergy," he says in the car on the way back. "That was gorgeous."

"Yes." She takes her eyes briefly off the road to smile at him. "I'd forgotten, what it felt like to hear an orchestra. And she sang so well, as well. That aria is one of my favourites."

"I reckon you'd sing it better."

Another glance. His smile is an avalanche, knocking the breath out of her lungs. "Thank you," she says, fixing her eyes on the white lines that stretch into forever and attempting to ignore the blush staining her cheeks as red as her dress.

When they arrive home, she's about to open the door, to get him out and close the book on this wonderful night, try and close the book on the feelings intent on forcing their way up her throat when he stops her. "Wait."

"What's the matter?"

He's silent for a moment, then turns his head with difficulty to look at her. His eyes are so old and so infinitely sad that she's frozen in place. "Can we just pretend for one more moment that everything's normal, that I'm a man who's just been to a concert with a beautiful woman in a red dress?"

"Okay," she whispers, and on an impulse, reaches out to take his hand. He can't tighten his fingers around hers, but the smile on his face tells her everything she needs to know.

 _What about love? Would love turn him away from this course he's set on steering?_

 _Oh my girl. Do you love him?_

 _I don't know. I think so. Maybe. I just…_

 _Darling…I don't think anything will change his mind._


End file.
